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Archived Newsroom • Press Release

Most promising ‘emerging market’ could turn out to be women

New York, 21 September, 2013 – A new report released today
by the Broadband Commission
Working Group on Broadband and Gender reveals a ‘significant and pervasive’
‘tech gap’ in access to information and communication technologies (ICTs).
Globally, the report estimates that there are currently 200 million fewer women
online than men, and warns that the gap could grow to 350 million within the
next three years if action is not taken.

Entitled
Doubling Digital Opportunities: Enhancing the Inclusion of Women &
Girls in the Information Society, the report brings together
extensive research from UN agencies, Commission members and partners from
industry, government and civil society, to create the first comprehensive global
snapshot of broadband access by gender. It was officially launched by Helen
Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), who has
led the Working Group since its establishment at the 6th meeting of the
Broadband Commission in New York last September.

The report reveals that around the world, women are coming online later and
more slowly than men. Of the world’s 2.8 billion Internet users, 1.3 billion are
women, compared with 1.5 billion men. While the gap between male and female
users is relatively small in OECD nations, it widens rapidly in the developing
world, where expensive, ‘high status’ ICTs like computers are often reserved for
use by men. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the report’s authors estimate
that there are only half the number of women connected as men.

Worldwide, women are also on average 21% less likely to own a mobile phone –
representing a mobile gender gap of 300 million, equating to US$13 billion in
potential missed revenues for the mobile sector.

“This new report provides an overview of opportunities for advancing women’s
empowerment, gender equality and inclusion in an era of rapid technological
transformation,” said Helen Clark. “It calls for social and technological
inclusion and citizens’ participation, explaining the societal and economic
benefits of providing access to broadband and ICTs to women, small entrepreneurs
and the most vulnerable populations. Most importantly, this report shows ways in
which we can further advance the sustainable development agenda by promoting the
use of new technologies in support of gender equality and women’s empowerment.”

The report speculates that today’s untapped pool of female users could also
represent a market opportunity for device makers, network operators, and
software and app developers that might equal or even outstrip the impact of
large emerging markets like China or India.

“Promoting women’s access to ICTs – and particularly broadband – should be
central to the post-2015 global development agenda,” said Dr Hamadoun I. Touré,
ITU Secretary-General and co-Vice Chair of the Broadband Commission. “The mobile
miracle has demonstrated the power of ICTs in driving social and economic
growth, but this important new report reveals a worrying ‘gender gap’ in access.
We need to make sure that all people – and most crucially today’s younger
generation – have equitable access to ICTs. I believe it is in the interest of
every government to urgently strive to redress this imbalance.”

Research highlighted in the report indicates that, in developing countries,
every 10% increase in access to broadband translates to a 1.38% growth in GDP.
That means that bringing an additional 600 million women and girls online could
boost global GDP by as much as US$18 billion.

The report also emphasizes the importance of encouraging more girls to pursue
ICT careers. By 2015, it is estimated that 90% of formal employment across all
sectors will require ICT skills. Professionals with computer science degrees can
expect to earn salaries similar to doctors or lawyers – yet even in developed
economies, women now account for fewer than 20% of ICT specialists.

ITU’s ‘Girls in ICT Day’, established in 2010, aims to raise awareness among
school-age girls of the exciting prospects a career in ICT can offer. This year,
over 130 countries held Girls in ICT Day events, supported by partners including
Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, ICT Qatar, Microsoft, the European Commission and many
more. To help older women get online and take advantage of new technologies, ITU
also has a partnership with Telecentre.org which is on track to train one
million women in ICT skills by the end of this year.

The Broadband Commission Working Group on Gender was initially proposed in
2012 by Geena Davis, actor, advocate and ITU’s Special Envoy on Women and Girls.
The group’s first face-to-face meeting in Mexico City in March 2013 attracted 69
Commissioners, special representatives and guest experts, making it the
best-attended Working Group of the Commission to date. The Group held its second
face-to-face meeting in New York on 20 September, just ahead of the full meeting
of the Commission. It was attended by Commissioners, representatives and special
high-level guests, included Nigerian Minister for Communication Technology
Omobola Johnson and Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

In addition to releasing the new report on Broadband and Gender, the
Broadband Commission also released the second edition of its global snapshot of
broadband deployment, entitled
The State of Broadband 2013. The report features
country-by-country rankings tracking countries’ performance against the
four broadband targets set by the Commission in 2011, as
well as a
new gender-related target set by the Working Group in
March, 2013.

Photos of the full meeting of the Commission and the Working Group on Gender
can be viewed and downloaded from Flickr at:
http://bit.ly/K5rJsS